


Be Whatever You Like

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Approximately canon levels of romance, Drunkenness, F/M, Nail Polish, Schmoop, cuddlecore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3699596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A calm night in, that’s what she needs. No distractions, no monsters, just a good book and her cellphone on silent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Whatever You Like

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Stars on his fingers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2647997) by [antennapedia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antennapedia/pseuds/antennapedia). 



> for Myopicfriend, who prompted: 12 x clara, ginger beer, mistaken identity, fluff. I accidentally re-wrote Antennapedia's "Stars on his Fingers" instead. Sorry about that.

It hadn’t been a fight, as such. Clara had implied she might occasionally want a break from the constant threat of danger. The Doctor had taken it the wrong way. She hadn’t been in the mood to soothe his wounded ego; he’d locked up into a sulk he swore he was too mature to be indulging in. So she’d left. Not left-left, not forever-left. She just needed some time off, is all.

A calm night in, that’s what she needs. No distractions, no monsters, just a good book and her cellphone on silent. She curls up on the sofa with a novel she’s been putting off reading for longer than she’d like to admit, lights dimmed to functional-but-cozy. It’s perfect.  

And she can’t concentrate. Maybe she’s trying too hard. Maybe she should take a nice long bath first. She’s beginning to wonder if she hasn’t forgotten how to just sit quietly and _be_ when the tell-tale wind starts up. She closes her eyes, searching for inner strength, and opens them to find the TARDIS wedged into the corner of the room.

The Doctor steps out slowly, clutching an old-fashioned physician’s bag and looking as nervous as she’d ever seen him. “Hey,” he says, hovering by the door.

“Hello,” she says patiently, willing him to absorb the details of the book and the sweatpants and the general air of ‘not tonight’.

“I was wondering. Did you mean you wanted time off from me, or from the, you know-” He waves a hand around, attempting to outline the shape of what their life together was. “-Action?”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“They don’t have to be.”

“Both, then.”

His face fell. She hadn’t really meant to hurt his feelings, or maybe she had, but either way there were some things she had to stick to, some lines she had to draw to keep him from becoming even more unmanageable than he already was. She’d said what she’d said, and he could deal with it.

Anyway, he's already rallying. Chin up, shoulders back, the man with a plan even if that plan is probably awful and/or made up on the fly. “Do you remember what you said?”

“I say quite a bit, on a day-to-day basis. Narrow it down?”

“About - friends. Your other friends. How you missed engaging in relaxing activities with an acquaintance without being afraid you’d end up having to run for your life or navigate the social intricacies of feudal Japan.”

“Fairly certain I didn’t phrase it quite like that, but yeah. So?”

“So. This is that.” He flops down next to her, dropping the bag onto her coffee table. He snaps it open roughly, starts rummaging around, arm-deep then shoulder-deep then half his torso somehow shoved inside it - he would have a dimensionally-transcendental purse, of course. Gradually, he assembles a haphazard pile on the table: a dusty bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine glass, two novelty bendy straws, a six-pack of ginger beer, five colors of nail polish, a deck of cards, microwave popcorn, and a beat-up cassette copy of _The Philadelphia Story_.

“I don’t have a VHS player,” she says. “This is 2015, even my grandmother doesn’t have a VHS player. And you don’t have to do this, you know. You’re my adventure friend, you don’t need to be my girls’-night-in friend.”

“Everything is a VHS player, if you put your mind to it. And I want to.” He’s staring at a tangled ball of wires and cables in his lap, deft fingers undoing the knots. “If you want to, that is. If you don’t, that’s fine, I’ll go, it’s not-”

“I’d love to,” she interrupts. “Thank you. This is very sweet of you. Strange, but sweet.” She puts her hand on his knee and gives it a light squeeze.

He squirms away, springs up off the sofa like a startled cat. “Right then. Step one, or so I’ve been told, is the distribution and consumption of refreshments.” He gives her a lopsided smile, like he knows how stilted and awkward he’s being. Pours her a glass of wine, pops the cap off a bottle of ginger beer with the base of his sonic screwdriver, gives them each a straw. No long-winded toast, thankfully, just a clink of his drink against hers and a muttered “Cheers”.

She raises her glass, and then her eyebrows, slurping at the straw. She supposes it is sort of fun watching the wine go through the loop-de-loops, even if somewhere a sommelier is crying.

 

“So I’m your adventure friend,” he says a bit later. He’s letting her paint his nails sparkly blue, left hand stiff and still in hers. Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant bantering in the background.

“Yeah?” She looks up briefly, but he’s fixated on their hands, so she goes back to work. Tiny careful strokes. “You’re my friend. We go on adventures. Adventure friend.”

“Okay.”

 

Another bit later, as she’s putting on a clear topcoat: “Am I any other kind of friend?”

She sighs, screws the cap back onto the polish and sets it down on the table. “Is that what this is about? You’re worried I only hang out with you because you take me exciting places?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” His voice is a little slurred. There’s something charming about an ancient, powerful being getting drunk on a non-alcoholic beverage. Or maybe that’s the wine talking.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” she says, which is as close as she can get to what she really wants to say. She pulls his hand close to her lips and blows gently on his fingertips. The polish is quick-drying, but it can’t hurt to be thorough. She can feel him trembling, just barely perceptible, and oh, maybe this was a mistake. He’s staring at her - she should probably break eye-contact - his face open and uncertain and oddly youthful. The universe’s oldest little boy. She lets go of his hand. The moment passes.

Another glass of wine, another ginger beer, their standard barriers apparently dissolved enough for her to nestle against his side, for him to put his arm around her. Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart bantering in the background. She could get used to this, the two of them in slow-motion, no motion, together in a way he’d swear he was too old and aloof to indulge in. The word 'cuddling’ would probably be taboo.

She sneaks a look at him: he’s inspecting his newly-blue fingernails with fondness and more than a little vanity, turning and flexing his hand, watching the glitter catch the light from the television set. He smirks; he knows she’s watching.

“I’d do yours but my hand-eye coordination is probably shot to hell,” he says softly, 'R’s burring more than usual. “Wind up shellacking your ears or something.”

“S'okay,” she replies. She gives him a pat on the chest, for reassurance not, you know, fondling, or anything. Even if she does let her hand rest there, rising and falling with his breathing. “Maybe next time.”

“Next time, yeah.”

Cary Grant proposing to Katherine Hepburn in the background. Slowly, contentedly, she drifts off to sleep.


End file.
